We have talked about the silent participation of the readers/lurkers, whatever you want to call them. But from this discussion, it also dawned on me that there exists the silent participation of the secrets we choose *not* to reveal. We know our whole truth, yet we reveal only a portion of that in an email community based on our "informed decision" in choosing our balance between revelation and privacy. Community members only see the portion we reveal... but we read their responses with our whole truth. Our secrets are silent participants on Socks.